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Friday, March 08, 2013

Coach John Tortorella often aggressively shoots down the media’s questions regarding injuries to Rangers’ players or requests for updates on players’ health.

Many times, the answer is “I haven’t spoken to Rammer,” that being trainer Jim Ramsay.

The truth is, as Tortorella explained on MSG’s “Behind the Bench” aired Thursday night, is he doesn’t believe the media - or, by extension, the team’s fans (paying customers) - need to know.

Tortorella’s rationale is he’s protecting his players.

“That’s a big part of a coach’s responsibility - injuries and a lot of different things that come along during the season - is to protect the player,” Tortorella said during the half-hour episode. “This with the media thinking they need to get all the information, I don’t agree with it.

“I think we need to give them what they need - they have a job to do - but they don’t need to know everything that’s going on with your hockey club and players - including the public and the paying customers,” Tortorella continued. “They pay a lot of money and we’re trying to put on a good show for them, but they do not need to know everything about what’s going on with our club.”

Recently, I wrote a column for The Record on this subject. Essentially I said player concussions should be a matter of public record. Other injuries, I understand not disclosing. In my research for the column, I was told the NHLPA prefers not to have its membership detail the injuries for fear of those injuries being targeted. Tortorella agrees with that safeguard and wondered why coaches or managers, specifically in the NFL which has a mandatory daily injury report, discuss injuries..

“Don’t tell me there’s not targeting going on there in football,” Tortorella said. “Again, I’ll speak on our position. We’re not trying to do it the wrong way. I think it’s the right way, because my No. 1 responsibility is the hockey team. No one else. Not you. Not the public. No one else except those players. We demand a lot out of them. I think it’s a two-way street, and I think we need to protect them in certain situations.

“I listen to some managers, coaches, they spend 15 minutes talking about injuries,” Tortorella added. “I think it’s ridiculous. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s just the way I think it should be done for our club. Now we have upper-body and lower-body, I’d rather not even talk about it.”

Tortorella also confirmed what we’ve all suspected, he instructs his players to say as little as possible to the media.

“I even tell my players, I don’t even want you talking about any injury or if you’re 50 percent or 75 percent,” Tortorella said. “I don’t believe in the percentages, either. I think it just turns into, ‘Listen, I was tweaked here, and yeah I tweaked it there.’ Don’t talk about it, OK?”

Any description of this game pretty much starts and stops with this, Rick Nash was dominant, Henrik Lundqvist, as usual, kept the Rangers in it long enough for them to rally, and while John Tavares was really really good for the Islanders (one can only imagine the acclaim he would get for his game if he was playing for a Canadian team or a team that got more public exposure that the Islanders), Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi played well against the Tavares top line with Brad Boyes and Matt Moulson (seven shots combined for the line).

Plus, Marian Gaborik can only hope his comment that getting the monkey off his back by scoring after an eight-game drought will hopefully lead to him scoring in bunches.

It was interesting to see how coach John Tortorella and assistant Mike Sullivan deployed their defensemen with Marc Staal out: Instead of the top four or, sometimes, the top logging most of the minutes, it was a fairly even distribution: Michael Del Zotto (21:54, two shots, three blocked shots), Dan Girardi (23:27, one shot, two blocked shots), Anton Stralman (18:30, one blocked shot), Ryan McDonagh (22:29, three shots, two blocked shots), Roman Hamrlik (15:48, one shot), Steve Eminger (15:04, one shot, four blocked shots).

“When you’re fighting for a match like we were all night long, Mac and Danny against Tavares, the minutes are going to be distributed,” Tortorella said. “I thought Hamrlik and Eminger, especially in the first period, played relaly well. It allowed us to keep our match. Sully felt very comfortable and it allowed us to keep our match.”
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Roman Hamrlik will indeed make his Rangers’ debut tonight after being claimed on waivers from the Capitals yesterday, starting on a third pair with Steve Eminger as Matt Gilroy is a healthy scratch for the fourth straight game.

Also between last time and now, the NHLPA has consented to the NHL’s realignment plan. So, next season, if this is, as expected, approved by the Board of Governors, the Rangers will be in an eight-team division with the Devils, Islanders, Flyers, Penguins, Capitals, Blue Jackets and Hurricanes.

“After discussions with the Executive Board, the NHLPA has given consent to realignment, to be re-evaluated following the 2014-15 season,” NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr said in a statement.

Added NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly: “The NHL Players’ Association confirmed to us today that it has consented to a revised Plan for Realignment, effective for the 2013-14 season. Our next step will be to bring the proposed Plan for Realignment to the NHL Board of Governors for its consideration. We will update the status of the process as future developments warrant.”

Meanwhile, before tonight’s game, coach John Tortorella was asked what he knew about Hamrlik, who he’s been coaching against since 2000. Tortorella did not give much of a scouting report.

Eminger said Hamrlik made a good impression against the Rangers in the teams’ seven-game second-round playoff series last spring as Hamrlik had a goal and 21 blocked shots.

Hamrlik, of course, is playing with Marc Staal out indefinitely after being hit near the right eye by a puck in Tuesday’s 4-2 win over the Flyers. Yesterday, the Rangers released a statement that said Staal was expected to make a full recovery.

“You feel for the guy, it was a scary incident,” Eminger said. “The reports are he’ll make a full recovery and that’s great news for Marc and his career. Marc was playing great hockey for us, it’s a definitely a big loss for us in the back end. It’s more minutes, not just for one guy, but a combination of guys will have to step up.”

About

ANDREW GROSS covers the New York Rangers for The Record and Herald News, having joined the North Jersey Media Group in November 2007. Gross also covered the Rangers and New York Jets, as well as St. John’s basketball and Army football, for Gannett Newspapers and The Journal News (N.Y.). He graduated from Syracuse University in 1989 with a degree in newspaper journalism.